From this mapper comes a new episode
in the Mel Soaring series, well known to
most of the people in the community as he
has produced quite a number of maps over
the years. This particular map was originally
intended to be one huge mother, but since
there was trouble getting it through the
vis process, it was divided in two smaller
ones.
The architecture tries to incorporate the
curved surfaces seen in Quake 3 and does
a pretty good job at that. There's consistency
in theme, a theme that looks very much like
the original Quake with a castle look. Architecture
is interesting, the path kind of winds back
upon itself making you enter rooms you've
already visited. Lighting is somewhat dark,
but it fits the rest of the settings well,
with a spooky wind blowing and a night sky
above you. All of the textures are new,
and they have been blended together in a
fine mix; a couple of new sounds have been
added as well.
When playing on hard skill level, one really
needs to be careful. The grouping of the
enemies will force you into several tough
combat situations, so quick thinking is
necessary. Along the way you'll be handed
the tools to survive, and weapons are given
with increasing power, just as they should.
Monster placement is very good and for once
I felt like I had a true challenge when
playing through the mission. Playing it
a second time was however much easier, although
I still managed to get myself killed a couple
of times.
The fact that the maps are pretty large
and have big rooms with sometimes lots of
curved walls doesn't affect the smoothness
of the map when running it. Areaportals
between large connecting areas will make
these two maps run on just about any platform.
The r_speeds never get exceedingly high
and are most of the time below the 500's.
Also the mission itself advances in a natural
way; of course you might get stuck on the
occasional hard combat situation, but as
soon as you get past it, you're back on
track in no time.
This is one of the top maps released this
year, so I really recommend you get it.
The challenge you're up to is very tough
and the architecture you encounter on your
way through the mission is very well designed.
It really deserves a very strong four, and
that's what it gets. Download!
Score: 4/5 |